A section of Air India (AI) staff called off their strike late on Wednesday following a warning from the government of stern action and the Delhi High Court terming the agitation illegal earlier in the day. The two-day flash strike by the airline?s ground staff crippled the carrier?s operation with at least 130 flights either cancelled or delayed on Wednesday.
The high court has also restrained employees from going on strike from May 31, which the airline unions had decided to protest against delay in payment of salaries.
The National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Nacil), which runs Air India, is estimated to have lost about Rs 10 crore in the two-day flash strike. The airline has suspended 16 and sacked 17 employees with immediate effect in its bid to deal strongly with the employees.
?The employees? demand was completely unreasonable. Their action has hugely damaged the airline?s reputation,? an Air India official said.
While the civil aviation minister Praful Patel gave free hand to the airline management to deal with striking employees, the Delhi High Court restrained Air India employees from continuing with the strike which caused losses to the airline and inconvenienced passengers.
Patel who apprised the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Cabinet of the situation at Air India called for strong and decisive action against employees.
?Absolutely irresponsible behaviour like this needs strong action. No one can take law into their own hands,? the minister told reporters.
Nearly 10,000 employees represented by Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) resorted to a flash strike on Tuesday alleging that the company management was restricting their freedom of speech by issuing a ?gag order?.
The airline management has denied that it issued any order stopping union members to air their views. The employee agitation came at a time when Air India struggled to come out of the fallout of an Air India Express flight crash which killed 158 passenger out of 166 in the weekend. Besides, the airline has been facing one of the worst financial crisis in its history with an accumulated loss of over Rs 12,000 crore.